Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.
James MadisonWith respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
James MadisonReligious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
James MadisonWhen men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.
James Madison